Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 by Melanie
- Ingredients for homemade zuppa toscana and garlic loaf -- $21.
- Realizing we don't have any soup spoons and picking up some plastic ones -- $3.
- Zipping back to the store for a nice Merlot -- $13.50.
- Having the Bodacious Brit slurp down a spoonful of soup, moan in ecstasy and say, "This is absolutely gorgeous! Why haven't you ever made this before? What's in it? No, I don't care -- I'm eating it anyway. Is there any more? There is? I love you." -- priceless.
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OM NOM NOM NOM
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Posted on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Pat Gaik
Review: Barn troupe delivers with 'Unnecessary Farce'
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By Patricia S. Stiller | Posted: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 8:05 am |
The Barn II comedy squad is at its finest in their latest offering, Paul Slade Smith's award-winning side-splitter, "Unnecessary Farce," making its Central Illinois debut in Goodfield this summer.
Set in adjoining rooms of an economy motel in "anywhere USA," this comedy centers around the undercover police investigation of a possible embezzlement scheme involving a town mayor.
At the center, two inexperienced officers, Eric Sheridan and Billie Dwyer, begin their day checking their surveillance equipment and running quality control checks on the doughnuts.
The officers are working in cooperation with the town's accountant, the lovely Karen Brown, who secretly has a thing for officer Sheridan, unbeknown to him.
Just as Brown is revealing her passion for the junior detective, his partner switches on the video camera in the next room, capturing the entire steamy interaction on tape just in time for the mayor to enter the scene.
Things go from bad to worse when the mayor's head of town hall security, Agent Frank, arrives and nervously erupts with information about the Scottish Mafia and the assassin known as Todd the Highland Hit Man, who is connected somehow to the missing money.
"No one is safe," Agent Frank warns.
When Billie returns to her room to check the equipment, she discovers a plaid duffel bag containing bagpipes in her room.
Lucky for her the mayor's wife, looking for her husband, arrives - or is it?
The ensemble delivers, with outstanding performances by John Johnson as Eric Sheridan and April Wyant as his partner, Officer Billie Dwyer.
Also giving it their best are Miranda Axsom as Karen, Dan Challacombe as Agent Frank, Mary Simon as Mrs. Meekly, and headliners Bob Lane Jr. as Mayor Meekly and Pat Gaik as Todd.
Patricia Stiller is a freelance writer who reviews plays for The Pantagraph.
Unnecessary Farce
Venue: Conklin's Barn II Dinner Theatre, Goodfield
Times and dates: Thu.-Sat. evenings and Sun. matinees, through Sept. 13
Cost: $31 to $35
Running time: 2 hr., including 20-min. intermission
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There's No Business Like Show Business
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Posted on Sunday, July 26, 2009 by Pat Gaik
Yay! It plays in Peoria!
Review: 'Unnecessary Farce' pushes the right buttons - Peoria, IL - pjstar.com
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Review: 'Unnecessary Farce' pushes the right buttons
Zany show follows conventions of a farce, but does it well
By GARY PANETTA
of the Journal Star
Posted Jul 26, 2009 @ 12:28 AM
GOODFIELD — Bagpipes, bumbling cops, a kilt-crazy Scotsman - what do you do for an encore?
If you're the alliteratively named playwright Paul Slade Smith, you might toss in standby gags such as trousers falling down and men in funny underwear.
That's what the actor/author does in the amusing and highly theatrical "Unnecessary Farce," which opened Friday at Conklin's Barn II Dinner Theatre.
The show begins with a pair of Keystone Kops in a sting operation trying to catch an embezzling mayor on video.
Everything, of course, backfires: Doors are slammed, identities are feigned as the plot grows ever zanier and a kilt-sporting, bagpipe-playing Scotsman wearing a fuzzy hat brogues and rogues his way across the stage.
Farces are almost by definition formulaic. Any writer who tries to produce one works within a narrow set of conventions. Yet for this very reason, farce has certain appeal.
Some basic elements of theater - stage business and gesture; verbal playfulness; a clever premise with great comic or dramatic appeal; story reversals that are surprising but plausible in retrospect - are at stake. How cleverly can the playwright manipulate them?
In this case, pretty cleverly, it turns out. Smith, who is touring with "Wicked," demonstrates an actor's pleasure in physical humor in "Unnecessary Farce." Only consider the opening moments of the play, when Officer Sheridan - bumbling cop No. 1, wonderfully played by John Johnson - plays Twister with uncooperative shirt and pants as he fields a telephone call from his angry boss.
It turns out Sheridan has just been playing twister of another sort with Karen, the fetching young accountant and intended jailbait for the mayor, an amiable but apparently clueless fellow played by Bob Lane.
Struggles with bothersome outer garments continue moments later as Karen - the funny, over-the-top Miranda Axsom - is busy unzipping this and peeling off that on the bed before the couple is embarrassingly interrupted.
But even the tangles of sheets and clothing are soon outpaced by tangles of a more verbal variety. The brilliant Pat Gaik, who cuts such a glorious figure as the fully costumed Scotsman, rapid-fires a stream of verbal nonsense that passes for dialect with admirable speed and ability. April Wyant - who plays Officer Billie, bumbling cop No. 2, the only character who can understand the Scotsman - just as admirably repeats it all in English, winning applause Friday night.
Smith's scene setting also is packed with comic possibilities: The play takes place in two adjoining motel rooms, one with a computer screen that monitors and records the goings-on next door.
The back-and-forth action between the rooms and the situation's built-in ironies are milked endlessly by director Mary Simon.
Combine all of this with additional, very weird characters - Agent Frank, who receives a loopy and odd performance from Dan Challacombe; and the soft-spoken Mary Meekly, well played by Simon, who wanders on stage like a ticking time bomb - and you have the makings of an amusing show.
"Unnecessary Farce" is a well-crafted farce that finds new energy in a familiar theatrical form.
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There's No Business Like Show Business
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Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 by Melanie
EP 79: Intervent This, Bitch (35:28)
Welcome to Episode 79 of "Don't Quit Your Day Job: The Podcast!" where Stacy debates the finest vintages that ever came out of a box, Patrick helps out our boys in Iraq, Melanie really, really, REALLY needs a frosty adult beverage, and Jerry has his first Chicago Dog (and Kiev hottie).
We have email!
Miss Wes
Bjorn
CJ Black
Send us email: dqydjpodcast@gmail.com
Send us voicemail: 206-666-4187
And remember, Angelenos, this is still running, but tickets are going fast!
Jeffrey Combs in
NEVERMORE
STEVE ALLEN THEATER
at the Center For Inquiry
West 4773 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 666-4268
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays
7/10/09 through 8/2/09
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episode 79
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Posted on Monday, July 20, 2009 by Pat Gaik
What do we call this look for the 11th Doctor? Prof-geek-chic? The full article is on the Mail Online with more pics, including new companion Amy and the re-done TARDIS exterior.
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Doctor Who Goodies
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Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2009 by Melanie
I didn't want to add this to the review because it's more of a personal aside, but I also got the best birthday present ever last night (and no, Patrick, oral gratification was not involved. Does it always have to be sex with you? But I digress).
I was sitting in the front row with the beauteous and talented Elisa, who runs the Combs Corner, and since this is a faux recital Jeff actually talks to the audience, so we got a couple of comments directed at us (I played along, since I was well-trained by the Nathan Lane of Mid-Central Illinois Dinner Theater). But we were also sitting on the far edge of stage right, where he was supposed to take a scripted fall off stage after giving a very iconoclastic performance of "The Bells." Now, I knew this was going to happen, and even tucked my feet under my chair to make more room, but I got so wrapped up in the performance that I kinda forgot about it--
--and was abruptly reminded when he suddenly went *airborne* right in front of me, landing in a heap at my feet. I actually lunged forward in my seat, grabbing for him on autopilot before remembering, "No, it's part of the act, don't touch...uh...he's not getting up...um, is he okay?"
(I assumed he'd take some sort of gentle stumble offstage -- more fool me. This was, after all, the man who leapt on Harold Gould in SKIN OF OUR TEETH like Simba taking down a wildebeest. )
As it turned out, he was fine. And in retrospect I probably should have checked on him -- I think he was angling for more audience participation. But now I can say, hand on my heart, that the highlight of my birthday month was having Jeffrey Combs at my feet. And the icing on the cake? After taking his bow, he started walking off stage, then turned and gave me this little "gotcha" grin. Bliss!
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best...birthday present...ever
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Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2009 by Melanie
Many moons ago, when the earth was young and Ann Coulter roamed the plains, I developed an unshakeable squeeing fangirldom for a young actor named Jeffrey Combs, who rose to fame in horror classics such as RE-ANIMATOR and THE FRIGHTENERS. Trek fans will know him from his numerous characters in three of the ST incarnations, and as well as his many, many movies he's also appeared in a variety of TV shows such as CSI and COLD CASE.
And tonight, after waiting for 22 years, I've finally gotten a chance to see him strut and fret his hour upon the stage in NEVERMORE, a one-man play that recreates one of Edgar Allen Poe's touring lectures and follows his descent into sorrow, loss and madness. To say that Jeff was magnificent is to do him a disservice -- I was floored, people.
Look, performing in a one-man play is never easy. Performing in a one-man play without an intermission, where you breathe life into an increasingly drunk and erratic Poe, cover the emotional range between out-and-out belly laughs and the blackest of sorrow, leap about like a crazed howler monkey while singing "The Bells," fall off stage while begging your disgusted fiancee not to leave, and leave every member of the audience stunned with your agonizingly powerful recital of "The Raven" -- that, my friends, is a masterful achievement of stagecraft.
If there was any way I could stay over and see it again tomorrow night, I would. Jesus God, but the man can act.
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jeff combs is an acting god
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Posted on Sunday, July 12, 2009 by Melanie
It's 7:27 AM and we just finished watching all five eps of Torchwood: Children of Earth. After picking my jaw up from the floor, I asked the Bodacious Brit why his countrymen felt the uncontrollable urge to burn everything to the ground, then piss on the ashes.
"It's a hobby," he replied.
Yes, CHILDREN OF EARTH was amazing and powerful storytelling. I'm not knocking that. But DAMN, Russell...
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I don't fucking believe RTD did that...
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Posted on Sunday, July 12, 2009 by Melanie
EP 78: Goodbye Mrs. Slocombe (And Her Pussy) (41:01)
Welcome to Episode 78 of "Don't Quit Your Day Job: The Podcast!" where Jerry is off attending a writer's group meeting, Stacy shops for defibrillators, Patrick has a bad day with his Scottish regalia, and Melanie is torn between Lance and Jeff.
We have voicemail!
Brian
Kathy
We have email!
Christopher from San Francisco
Send us email: dqydjpodcast@gmail.com
Send us voicemail: 206-666-4187
And remember, Angelenos, in two weeks I will be in your neighborhood for this!
STEVE ALLEN THEATER
at the Center For Inquiry
West 4773 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 666-4268
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays
7/10/09 through 8/2/09
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episode 78
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Posted on Saturday, July 11, 2009 by Melanie
Happiest of happies to the one and only Super Bee, and enjoy the frosty adult beverages!
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